President's Twitter attempt worthwhile (EDIT)

A week ago, President Barack Obama hosted what was dubbed the first Twitter Town Hall.

At its core, this event was a question and answer session from the public. The format can best be described as a cross between a traditional press conference where approved questions are presented to the guest, and a social media chat room where the chatter flies so fast few people can keep up with it all.

In that respect, the Town Hall was like following any other event on Twitter. Conversations on that social media network are like a sideshow to the speech, sports event or breaking news situation that fills the TV screens or news sites. In this case, however, the conversations among the audience had a chance of making it to the newsmaker.

Although only a few questions were selected for the official discussion, the moderator, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, included references as to how many times that question or a similar one came up. A large computer screen displayed both for the studio audience and those watching on TV or the Internet which question was being discussed.

Steven Norton wrote a piece for the Charlotte Observer about his experiences being among the committee who monitored the appointed Twitter hashtag for the day, #AskObama, to see what questions that people wanted the president to take on.

"The topics were broad, from the recovery of the housing market to immigration reform and everything in between. But they were topics everyone on Twitter was asking about," he explained.

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, a Republican, also submitted in a pointed question about government spending and job creation via Twitter. The president replied.

But disappointment from the public about a politician's tweet was swiftly noted. Several people participating in the Twitter conversation voiced their opinions that official participation should have been reserved for those who don't otherwise have access to the chief executive.

Other critics thought the official answers were not as helpful as they could be. Some accurately pointed out that the president is known for lengthy answers that don't fit neatly into Twitter's 140-character limit.

We at The Monroe Evening News would like to have seen some of our local readers participate. We turned on our twitter feed at @monroenews and did a shoutout both on Twitter and on Facebook that afternoon. But there were no replies directly to us, and we did not see any posts on the town hall hashtag from people we knew to be local.

To be fair, our local audience is more likely to be on Facebook than on Twitter.

But overall, the town hall event was worth the planning time and logistical effort that was involved.

Such an opportunity was an admirable way to spark conversations of democracy among a different demographic than might otherwise be involved in government affairs.

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